Mom goes to Iran

My mom decided to go to Iran for a visit a couple of months ago. My sister Azie and her family really wanted to see her. The last time my mom had gone home was five years ago and she was due for another visit. I made the travel arrangements for her, and she started packing about a month before her travel date. She likes to pack early and carefully decide what presents she is going to take for everybody. We went shopping a couple of times and she bought a few things, but most of the presents were what she had collected over the last few years. My sister Soudi who was visiting at the time and was staying with my mom for a while kept telling me, “Mom is taking a bunch of junk to Iran. No one is going to like those presents. A lot of them are old stuff, talk to her. She listens to you.” I said to her, “I have been through this before. She doesn’t listen to me and she will get upset.” I said, “Everyone knows that she is an old eccentric lady and they won’t be offended by her.” I have to say that no one travels like my mother. She takes so much stuff with her everywhere she goes. Every time she travels I ask her not to pack so much, because I’m the one who has to carry all the stuff back and forth to and from airport, but she just can’t help it. Last year, she went on a three-day cruise and she had two good size pieces of luggage and a big bag to carry on the plane.

As the appointed day was approaching I was getting a bit nervous. She had two large suitcases, which thankfully weighed right below fifty pounds each, which was the limit, but what made me nervous was her humongous carryon, which was almost the size of a regular suitcase. I was sure they would not let her take that with her on the plane. She also had a big handbag and a video camera, so there were three pieces that she wanted to take on the plane. The airlines usually let you take two.

On the day of her flight, I woke up in the morning thinking I wish this day was already over. It was going to be a difficult day. I had to go to work and then leave work at about three, go to my mom’s apartment, pick her up and take her to the airport. I had decided to get to the airport three hours before the time of her flight instead of two. I thought we might have difficulties, and I wanted to have enough time to deal with anything that might come up, so I had taken three vacation hours. Once at my mom’s apartment, I carried the suitcases to my car and put them in the trunk and the back seat. We got to the airport forty minutes later. I parked the car and proceeded to carry the suitcases to the terminal. My mom carried the carryon with her big handbag and the video camera on top of it. The other two suitcases which were really old and the wheels on them were worthless I carried. There were no carts in the parking lot. Half way to the terminal my mom saw two young men and asked them to help me. Gratefully, I gave one of them one of the suitcases, and he carried it to the elevator leading to the terminal. We thanked him, got on the elevator and went to the British Airways ticketing counter. When we were approaching the ticketing counter, my mom gave me her passport and said, “You go ahead and check me in. I’m going to sit here.” I said, “I think, you are going to have to be there, don’t sit down yet.” When I approached the ticketing agent my mom was standing about 15 feet away and I was wondering why she didn’t want to approach the counter. I gave her passport to the agent, and we weighed the suitcases. Fortunately, her suitcases weighed about 46 pounds each, so we didn’t have to take things out of them like the last time she traveled to Iran. The agent asked if she had anything else. I said, “She has a handbag and a carryon”. I didn’t mention the video camera. The agent said, “I have to see the handbag and the carryon.” I asked my mom to come forward. She approached the ticketing counter hesitatingly trying to hide her carryon behind her. I realized, at that point, why she didn’t want to come forward. As soon as the agent saw the carryon he said, “That is the size of a regular suitcase. I can’t let you take that in.” My mom said, “I was afraid of that.” The agent said, “If you want to take it you have to check it in and pay $165.00. You are only allowed to have two suitcases free of charge.” I looked at my mom and she said, “No way”. I was wondering what we were going to do. The agent said, “I can give you a bag to put the stuff that you want to take with you, but the carryon cannot go.” I said, “OK, we’ll take the bag.” He gave us a very sturdy plastic bag with a zipper. I was thinking the size of the bag is about a third of the size of her carryon. I wonder what she is going to leave behind. At that point, the agent said, “You can still put in a few more pounds into each suitcase.” We took the suitcases, the carryon, the video camera, her big handbag and the plastic bag to a corner out of the way and for the next hour my mom examined each item in the carryon trying to decide what to take and squishing as much as she possibly could into the bag we got from the agent. I was kind of stressed, but I thought we came to the airport a whole hour early for something like this. We have time. It’s OK.

As my mom was unzipping her large carryon to see what she should take with her, I thought this is going to be a difficult process trying to decide what to take and what not to take. She opened the carryon, and I was shocked at what I saw in it. I saw a dress that I had worn about 20 years ago when I was still in college. I saw a bunch of pens from the First Bank, the auto repair shop and the insurance agency. I saw a handful of band-aids. I saw a long white zipper. I saw old sweaters and shoes. I saw a couple of old towels. I was bewildered. I could not stop laughing, and I could not hold my tongue. As far as I was concerned this was all junk. She didn’t need to take any of it. I took vacation time to deal with this? All of these items would not be worth $20.00 at a garage sale. I said to my mom, “This is all junk mom. They wouldn’t like any of it. You are not going to a refugee camp in Sudan!” But of course, every piece of item to her was valuable. She said, “The clothes are in good shape, the sweater is made of wool. The pens are new and so on. And I thought not only they won’t like any of it, they may even be insulted. They are not in need of charity. Then I thought they all know mom. She is an unusual old lady. They’ll probably get a good laugh out of it like I am. I started helping her put more stuff in the suitcases. When I thought we had reached the limit of fifty pounds, I went and weighed the suitcases to make sure they didn’t exceed the limit. They didn‘t. Then my mom started to fill the plastic bag. She was pushing and shoving as I watched anxiously. I was thinking the bag is going to bust, but it didn’t. A couple of minutes later the bag was full and my mom was trying to zip it up when she exclaimed, “The zipper broke“. At that point, I thought I’m just going to leave this to my mom and the universe. I’m done. I’m through. I’m going to stand back and watch. This is beyond me. Then, I heard my mom say, “Go ask the guy for another bag.” I was embarrassed to go and ask him, but I did. I gave the new bag to her and as I looked at the remaining stuff in the carryon I thought, I’m not going to dissuade her from taking what she wants to take, this is her experience, her vacation, and I‘ll keep my opinions to myself. I sat on one of the suitcases and watched my mom do her work from afar. The ticketing agent would occasionally look at my mom and I and would examine the progress. My mom sat in that corner for the next thirty minutes without looking up oblivious of her surroundings and sorted through all the items left. She tried to put as much as she could in her handbag and the plastic bag with the working zipper. At one point, she realized that the plastic bag holds more than her handbag and she would rather take another plastic bag with her instead of her handbag. She told me “Ask the agent for another plastic bag”. I replied, “Just use the one with the broken zipper”. I was way too embarrassed to ask for another bag. So she emptied her handbag into the plastic bag with the broken zipper and put more stuff in. At that point, I realized that she may actually be late for her flight and I told her to hurry up. As I watched my mom stuff the bags, I thought how beautiful she looked. Her fine features, delicate face and beautiful white alabaster skin are very noticeable. Her mostly white shoulder length hair was pushed back with a headband. Her light red lipstick complimented her skin. She looks at least ten years younger than her age. People always tell me that she is beautiful. I thought, I wish I would look as good as her when I’m her age.

My mom was finally done. She approached the ticketing agent with her two bursting plastic bags. The ticketing agent looked at me and said, “What kind of miracles did you have to perform?” I replied, “You’ll have to ask her”. My mom told the agent that one of the zippers broke. Of course, he didn’t understand her broken English, and I had no choice but to translate. Without looking up he said, “So what do you want me to do?” My mom chuckled and said nothing. The agent checked her in. I told him that she is insulin dependent and needs to carry her bottles of insulin with her on the plane, since they need to be refrigerated. He looked at the bottles to make sure her name was on them and said OK. I had asked for a wheel-chair for her, since walking is a bit difficult for her and she had the two bags. I explained to her the last minute details before she sat on the wheel-chair. I walked with her to the security area while an airline employee pushed her wheel-chair. When she reached the security, I told the man who was pushing the wheel-chair to make sure and tell the security people that she needs to have her insulin bottles with her. I reminded my mom of her stop in London and how another person with a wheel-chair would take her to the right gate once she got there. She asked me if I would stay and make sure she got through security without any problems. I said, “Yes, I’ll be here until you have gone through security”. She said, “Thank you my dear, May God give you that which will make you happy. You are my rock. You are the delight of my heart.” It was nice to hear those words. Those words coming from my mother had an incredible power. This woman whose love and approval I have always sought. This most powerful person in my life who can build me up or bring me down with just one word, the person who I have tried to please for as long as I remember. This woman who has hurt me deeply and has also loved me like no one else ever has… I gave her a hug and said, “You’re welcome mom. I love you. Have a great time.” I stood there and watched her go through security. At one point, she looked back to see me. I smiled and waved at her.

I watched the sunset as I drove home. The colorful sky and the cloud formations against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains looked breath taking. I felt a calm come over me. I smiled. I felt at peace with my life.